It was a stroke of luck that the guest wing wasn’t being monitored at all. Maybe Metcalf had thought visitors shouldn’t be subjected to the same scrutiny as the rest of the community. Given that Joshua Metcalf was in charge of security, this was a good thing. The spymaster wasn’t supposed to know Erik had survived, much less that the two were living under the same roof. His suspicions would certainly have been aroused if cameras were capturing the number of food trays traveling to the guest wing. Hannah’s presence alone couldn’t justify that amount of activity. Daniel’s frequent visits to two different guest rooms would have been equally suspicious. Thankfully nothing that happened in the wing was being recorded.
The paladin gave a rueful sigh. While he might be able to get out of his room and out of the guest wing undetected, that wouldn’t be the case once he started moving through the rest of the building. To accomplish that feat, he needed help. Daniel had given him a layout map and had drawn arrows from Erik’s current location to Metcalf’s office. The scion had circled all the cameras in the corridors and their field of view. There were plenty of blind spots if the paladin was careful. He should be able to make it all the way to the diviner’s office without being seen. “Should” being the operative word.
The entire point of this risky exercise was to set up surveillance in Metcalf’s office. Maddie believed that if she could monitor the old man’s conversations, she might finally learn what his endgame was. The paladin thought her scheme looked great on paper. Getting himself from the guest wing to the office was the tricky part. If Joshua Metcalf learned of his existence, much less that he was sneaking around the compound after hours, Erik wouldn’t survive the night.
The paladin shrugged philosophically. He’d beaten steeper odds than this. He checked his pocket for the spare key to the diviner’s office that Daniel had given him. “Showtime,” he murmured, then unlocked his prison door and advanced into the hallway.
Erik took his time inching down one corridor and up another. His injuries didn’t allow him to move very quickly, but a slow pace also allowed him to scan for any unanticipated dangers. The compound was a maze. From the outside, its cinderblock shape looked deceptively simple. Inside was another story. The hallways intersected and dead-ended at unexpected points. Erik didn’t know if the architect’s intention had been to confuse and disorient an outsider, or maybe the occupants themselves, but the strategy succeeded admirably. He found himself referring repeatedly to his layout map. More than a few times, he ducked down inches before stepping into a camera’s field of view.
As he proceeded, he listened for stray sounds coming from the sleeping chambers, secretly praying that nobody suffered from insomnia. On that score, his biggest fear was running into Metcalf himself. Daniel had told him the diviner rarely slept through the night unless he drugged himself into a stupor. Hopefully, this was one of those nights.
The paladin checked his watch. He’d only been traveling for ten minutes, but it felt like two hours when he made the turn into the corridor where the office was located. He glanced up and saw the camera near the ceiling at the far end of the hall. During Chopper’s assassination attempt, Joshua had apparently tinkered with the angle of coverage as well as the feed. The camera no longer captured Metcalf’s office door. Daniel had been able to verify this after overhearing complaints from the sentries that “someone ought to fix that cam.” But nobody had.
The paladin smiled to himself. Their loss. If he pressed himself against the wall and kept low, he should be able to slip inside unseen. He hunkered down and unlocked the door, opening it barely enough to squeeze through. He paused to listen. No alarms sounded. He couldn’t hear running feet. One hurdle cleared.
Now he turned his attention to the cameras above him. There were three. Two were affixed to the corners near the ceiling behind the diviner’s desk. The third was directly above the desk itself. Incredibly enough, all of them were trained on a wall of paneling twenty feet away on the opposite side of the room. This meant that half the room was a blind spot. As long as Erik stayed close to Metcalf’s desk, he wouldn’t be seen. That suited his plan perfectly. There was nothing on the other side of the room that he needed. The camera placement baffled him though. He shelved that puzzle as something to contemplate in his leisure time. For now, everything he needed was on Metcalf’s desk.
Erik straightened up and breathed a sigh of relief. He’d made it all the way to his destination without a hitch. Now came the fun part. Everything hinged on Metcalf’s cell phone. Erik’s first job was to find it. His task would have been far harder if the diviner were a few decades younger. Unlike Millennials whose cell phones were grafted onto their hands at all times, the older generation usually left their cells lying around like a spare pair of reading glasses. The paladin assumed Metcalf would store his phone in the office rather than carrying it with him when he retired for the night.
That assumption proved to be correct. When Erik slid open the center drawer of Metcalf’s desk, the phone was tucked inside, still powered on with a full battery charge. That was a good sign. It meant that, except for recharging, the phone was always operational. He studied it—a brand new Android. Another good sign which indicated that Metcalf wouldn’t be likely to upgrade it anytime soon. Erik went to work. He downloaded a
